Last night while my wife and I were watching President Obama's address to the American people from the Oval Office, and I was constantly bemoaning how bad it was, my wife made two really good points. The first was that I need to cut President Obama a little slack since he inherited an almost unending list of problems from President George W. Bush. She is, of course, right. Even without the current disaster caused by BP, President Obama has had more problems on his desk than could possibly be handled by anybody. It took years for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to create these problems, so I guess I should not expect President Obama to solve them all instantaneously.
The second point my wife made came in the form of a simple question, "What would you do?". I was raised, and I believe properly so, to believe that you cannot just bitch about things, you need to come up with a solution and act to cause change.
So as I was trying to get to sleep last night, I started to think about the speech that I think President Obama should have given last night. It is far more productive for me to propose an alternative than it is to simply say that his speech last night was very disappointing. Unfortunately, I do not have a research staff, nor do I have all day and night to write this speech. Nevertheless, here is a very rough draft of the speech President Obama should have given last night. President Obama's staff will have to fill in and check some facts and figures, but I hope that you get the point.
Please feel free to suggest edits.
My fellow Americans,
We are facing by far the worst environmental disaster that we have ever faced, and it is getting worse every day. This disaster occurred suddenly, but it has also been a long time in the making.
It occurred suddenly as a result of the negligence of BP and its contractors who cut costs at the expense of safety and demonstrated a complete disregard for the impact that their single-minded focus on profits could have on human life and the environment. As a result, today scientists are estimating that BP's Deepwater Horizon well is spewing between 2 million and 2.5 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico each day. It is wrong to call this an oil spill. This well is spewing oil into the environment and causing a human and environmental disaster of a scale never seen before.
As soon as the accident occurred on the drilling rig, my Administration started to take action. We were hampered by the fact that BP controlled the well site and was suppose to have the technology and equipment to control the spewing of oil. But as the CEO of Exxon Mobil testified today in Congress, the oil companies are not well equipped to deal with this kind of problem. We have deployed over 5,000 vessels, 30,000 workers, and millions of miles of booms. We have also brought together the best minds both inside the oil industry and from other areas to seek ways to stop the spewing of oil and to clean up the environmental disaster it is causing. [Note: add other things that we have done and be sure we have pictures]
But we must, and we will do more. It is clear that the most innovative efforts to stop the oil from reaching our shores and cleaning it up once it gets to the shores are being done by local governments that know their shores the best. But they need help. Since the oil industry has not invested any significant amount of money in spill prevention or cleanup technology, we are still using the same techniques we used 30 years ago. Those techniques can be more effective than they have been, but they require more manpower and local control of the efforts.
I have authorized the use of 17,000 National Guard troops to help the local governments in any way that they can. In addition, we will be providing local governments with the funds they need to hire workers locally to fight the oil coming ashore in any way that they can think of. We are also establishing a clearinghouse so that the best ideas from people all over the Gulf coast can be disseminated to all the communities fighting the oil. Initially, I am authorizing $10 billion for this effort and will work with Congress to authorize more in the days ahead. BP will reimburse us for these expenditures. This effort will have the added benefit of employing the workers who are currently unemployed because of the impact of the terrible general economic conditions and the impact that this disaster is having on the Gulf coast.
At the same time, I am issuing an order that all workers involved in this clean up effort must be provided appropriate hazardous material protection including respirators. The toxic environment of crude oil and chemical dispersant that these people work in requires that their health be protected.
But we are not stopping there, we will continue to find new and innovative ways of dealing with the oil and restoring the Gulf coast to its beautiful and productive condition.
Tonight I am also announcing that I am withdrawing my proposal to open more offshore areas to drilling, and that I am ordering that all currently operating offshore wells suspend operations until Federal regulators can inspect each of them to be certain that they are operating within their permits and that they have real disaster response plans in place. It is clear that big oil simply photocopies disaster response plans without giving them any thought. They have the same plan for all the big oil companies and for all the areas. It is also clear that Federal safety regulators have not been doing their job. So there will be no more off shore operations until real safety inspections are completed and real disaster response plans are in place and tested.
It is also clear that the Minerals Management Service, the Interior Department and other parts of the Federal government have not been doing their job of protecting the American people and environment. That stops now. I have fired Secretary Salazar, and I have appointed Michael R. Bromwich, a former federal prosecutor and inspector general for the Justice Department to take over the Minerals Management Service. I have also asked Vice President Biden to take on the additional task of overseeing the Interior Department until I can appoint a new Secretary of the Interior. The Department of the Interior will stop being a place that employs people from the industries that it deals with. We will employ professionals that know how to regulate.
As I said at the beginning of this address, this disaster occurred suddenly, but it also has been a long time in the making. While the immediate cause of this disaster is the negligence and greed of BP and its contractors, the major systemic problem that lead to this disaster is our dependence on fossil fuels. We use 25% of the petroleum that the world uses each year, but we are less than 5% of the world population. Our thirst for oil has lead to drilling that is inherently too risky to both people and the environment. As leaders of this country have said for decades, we must break our dependence on fossil fuels. This environmental disaster makes it clear that we need to break that dependence now.
We all - government, private industry, non-government organization and individuals - need to work together to break this dependence. We can do it, and we can start right now.
Tonight, I am proposing that the government's budget for energy efficiency initiatives and green technology be increased from its current level of less than $2 billion to $20 billion. These funds will be used to provide support for private and public research and development as well as funds to permit private businesses to commercialize green technologies across our entire economy. As a result, the United States will not be dependent upon China to lead in green technology. We will lead, and we will create millions of good paying jobs here and be able to export our technology abroad.
These efforts will require some time to have an impact. In the meantime, there is a lot that we can do together. All of us can conserve energy. The Republicans made fun of me for suggesting that people should properly inflate their tires because it saves gasoline. In fact, proper tire inflation can improve mileage by 3% and proper maintenance can improve mileage by another 4% and not speeding and accelerating gently can improve mileage by another 20%. In addition, we can all set the temperature on our thermostats higher by a degree or two in the summer and lower by a degree or two in the winter. These steps could save __% from an average heating and cooling bill. We can seal our windows, turn off lights and other electrical devices we are not using, use less water, walk or bike or take public transportation and the list goes on. No single one of these efforts will break our dependence on fossil fuels, but they all help and in the aggregate they will make a substantial difference.
Another significant systemic problem that lead to this disaster is the Republican's unrelenting push for deregulation. The meltdown of the financial system combined with this environmental disaster should make it clear to even the most rabid anti-government conservative that industries do not and cannot regulate themselves. For profit corporations are just that. They exist to make profits, and they are responsible to their shareholders to maximize profits. Unless forced by government regulation, they do not take into account the secondary costs of their operations, those costs which society bears but the individual business does not. Unbridled, uncontrolled capitalism does not work. Government has a critical role to play in regulating businesses so that the public does not bear the indirect costs that the individual companies do not bear. Insuring safety of the people, the economy and the environment is a role that government must play.
Starting today, we will fight for professional regulators and appropriate regulations that will protect the American people from corporations' single-minded focus on profits even at the expense of human safety, the economy and the environment. We will fight to institute reforms in the current revolving door between the regulators and the regulated, and we will once again make government work for all the people not just for the big corporations.
Our country faces serious systemic problems that we must address now. I am asking for your help in dealing with these problems - not with 30 second sound bites or overheated rhetoric, but with thoughtful, fact based solutions. Congress will need to act with foresight and courage, something that they have not historically been willing to do. But with your help, we can force them to act. I plan to spend more time visiting with you, the American people, talking about the problems that we face and the solutions that I have to offer. I will also ask you to talk to your elected representatives and remind them that they were elected by you, that they are responsible to you and not to the big corporations and that they need to have the courage to do what is right for the people of this country not for the big corporations that fund their campaigns.
Throughout history, whenever Americans have come together to solve problems, they have been successful. We can solve the problems that we face today by working together and engaging in thoughtful discussions of the problems and their potential solutions.
Thank you for listening tonight, and I look forward to having many conversations with you in the days and years ahead.
Good night.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
No comments:
Post a Comment